Former Aston Villa star and Championship observer Lee Hendrie is adamant Hull City owner Acun Ilicali must give his next manager time to implement his ideas.
Sergej Jakirovic is expected to be confirmed as the club’s new head coach in the coming days once he’s been granted a visa on Wednesday, replacing Ruben Selles almost a month after the Spaniard left following the conclusion of the Championship campaign.
The Bosnian will be the third full-time boss in just over 12 months following on from Liam Rosenior, Tim Walter and Selles.
Jakirovic arrives from Turkish football, having guided struggling Kayserispor to safety in the second half of the Super Lig campaign after arriving in January, and will be Ilicali’s fifth appointment since taking control at the MKM Stadium in early 2022.
Hendrie, who watched City throughout the 2024/25 campaign in his role as summariser for Sky Sports, believes the Tigers have the desire to win promotion, but must be smarter about how they try to achieve it.
“I find myself saying this over and over about Hull City,” Hendrie told FLW. “They have to give someone the reins, they have to give someone the belief that they’re going to be in the football club and in a job, because Hull do have to get the appointment right.
“Since Liam Rosenior left, they just haven’t been able to do so. They’ve taken gamble after gamble, bringing in Ruben Selles, who didn’t get the opportunity to carry on, with him leaving the football club and looking elsewhere.
“It’s just crazy! I think that you do need stability. I hope it does work out for Hull City this time around because they’re a club that certainly are striving to go forward, and the owners are very, very keen on getting into the Premier League and having a promotion push.
“They have got that enthusiasm to really go for it, but they have to get it right because they can’t do what they did last season and be very inconsistent, change the whole format, and keep changing the manager. It just isn’t, for me, healthy for the football club.
“They have to make sure that they get this appointment correct and give them the time to really go and build and try and take Hull City forward.”